Election: Charles Beatty Shares His Ideas with Patch

Charles Beatty

Former CVWD director Charles Beatty has lived in the Crescenta Valley for about 60 years and was recently . Beatty worked in management with Ralph's Grocery Company. He is a foothills realtor known by locals as . He is a member and former president of the Crescenta-Canada Board of Realtors.

Beatty has served as CV Town Council President three times. His family, including his three grandsons, all live in La Crescenta. He has received honors from the County of Los Angeles in January 2001 and Commendation for Service as Crescenta Valley Town Council President for 2000 by Supervisor Michael Antonovich.

Montrose Patch had several questions for Beatty, including the , infrastructure, water conservation and why he deserves your vote:

Do you think the Crescenta Valley Water District should issue a bond and subsequent water rate increase to fund it? Why or why not?

The district is going to present bonds to public, the public can buy the bonds. Yes I think it’s a good idea and for two reasons. One, it will allow us to pay back money in 30 years, through inflation. [Two], even though no one’s talking about, things go up through inflation.

First of all, you pay back the cheaper dollar [with a bond]. Right now we have to pay extra money for the water purchase. You pay back in cheaper dollars, right now we don’t have to pay extra money for the water purchase. It’s a really complex issue. If we pay as we go, everything’s going to go up. If you pay it off over years it will be less than what you have to pay at this point in time.

It’s a buy, buy situation. It’s great for the buyer who buys the bonds; it’s great for the issuer, which is the district. We need to stay in a vanguard. Key word: vanguard. The opportunity to ensure, that we, the district, have clean, pure water.

What do you think is the most important issue that the CVWD board needs to tackle?

The important issue is the bonds. The bonds will give us the money to fix the infrastructure. The infrastructure is not dilapidated at all, it just needs [to be replaced] overtime. For instance, a pipeline that’s gone down the street for 40 years may be fine but it may not be fine eight months from now or 10 months from now. It’s best to be on the preventive side. Today’s technology is a lot different than it was 50 years ago.

How do you conserve water in your every day life?

My family conserves water. Myself, my wife and my children who live on the top of the hill conserve water tremendously. I used to have three years ago a nice, beautiful front yard with some green grass, now I have a nice beautiful garden with less green grass. I have plants that will actually absorb moisture from the air. My water bill is very, very low because of that. I don’t have plants, trees and etcetera that cause a problem to create more water shortages that we did have. I always loved to have a garden with roses, radishes [and corn]. Now, I figured that I’m going to build a platform where I can grow these plants where I can water them and the water will come down and drip down… then I can recycle that water. This is what the carwashes do.

Why should people vote for you?

I’m the best candidate. I’ve lived here all my life, 60 years plus. My opponent has lived in the Crescenta Valley very little. I think outside the box. I think I’ll be able to continue on what I did before, which was help district.

My opponent is a nice person, we just think differently. That’s all. That’s what makes horse racing great.

Check out Patch's 2011 Voter Guide